Here is the most common GMAT study plans used by GMAT Club Members:

If you study best with books, get the full collection of the MGMAT Guides or Veritas Prep
Guides + OG 13. The book bundles come with everything you need and both are fully all-inclusive in
terms of what you need. My only other suggestion is to get the MGMAT Roadmapwhich serves a
collection of study-related tips. This is a reliable/proven approach with good results. The cost will
be $150-300.

If you prefer an online study option, use the Magoosh, GMAT Pill, or eGMAT (verbal only) online
courses. Like books, they come with everything you need, including practice tests and quizzes. In
addition, online courses provide constant feedback and instructor support and you also get GMAT
Club tests free of charge with GMAT Pill and eGMAT. These Courses offer a free trial and a score
improvement guarantee. E-GMAT in particular is very popular with non-natives. Your cost may even
be less than with books ($99 - 300)

Month 1

 Start with Math section first and focus just on math alone (you can do both math and verbal but I suggest
you put all attention into one). Both MGMAT and Veritas Prep have numbered books, so all you have to
do is open Book1 or Book0 and just follow along. Plan to spend 4 weeks on it.
 Start using an Error Log - keep track of your mistakes and guesses -this will become your study guide in
Month 3.
 Optional Step: If you are feeling the load is too heavy and you are really weak in Math - get MGMAT
Math Foundations book; it is great in providing a more general overview of math concepts.
 At the same time, start reading GMAT Fiction (see below for details on what it is for)
 Get involved with the Math Forum - you will learn a lot esp. when you try to teach someone or explain
something
 After you are done with the math section - start taking the math portion of the tests you have.
 Evaluate results and decided if you need to spend more time in Math and patch up certain weak areas or
move on to Verbal. This decision will be based on your target GMAT score. If you are looking for high
600's and 700's, I would not move past Quant unless I was able to score around Q44 and possibly higher.
Quant scores have been inflated recently with Q51 (highest possible quant score clocking a mere 97th
percentile and Q49 is 81st), so make sure you are up there. Do not leave a chapter or a section unless you
were able to solve 90% of the questions correctly in the allotted time. Don’t run away from your mistakes
– sooner or later they will catch up; the better strategy is to address them right there and then and make
sure you never see them again.
 If you need additional help in Quant - refer to the Math Resources on GMAT Club or the GMAT Math
Books section. Another book you may consider is the PR 1012 - it contains targeted GMAT practice
questions, which could be helpful in honing one's skills.
 Though may seem attractive, Advanced Quant book from MGMAT has received mixed reviews from the
users - many feel it is really too hard and is not representative of the GMAT's difficulty. We did attempt to
go through it and even for yours truly, it proved discouraging and painful. Unless you are really bored, it
may be a book better left for another time.
 If you are comfortable with Quant but want to get to Q50+, use the GMAT Club Tests - they contain only
hard questions and were designed as practice for high-level math scorers. You can purchase them, earn a
free subscription by earning 25 Kudos, or sign up with a partner course (almost all come with GMAT Club
tests as a bonus)
 Another worthwhile resource for you may be this quant-focused discussion: how to get from Q44 to Q50

Sidebar
At this time you will probably be wondering about questions such as “how many can I get wrong and
still get a Q50?” and other questions which really do not have answers. If you find yourself
wondering about these things at night, head over to the following discussions:

 GMAT algorithm – how does it work?

 What-If analysis of the GMAT Prep
 How are GMAT scores calculated and what is a raw score?
 Has anyone scored an 800? Yes, he has.
Month 2

 Start working on the Verbal section. You can start with any question type, but my suggestion would be to
tackle Sentence Correction first as it is usually the most straightforward
 Error Log!
 Sentence Correction Optional Step: If you are not a native speaker, you will need a good grammar book or
a verbal-intensive course such as the SC course by eGMAT that focuses on concepts for non-native
speakers. Several grammar books are recommended on the Forum (best-gmat-grammar-book-for-
international-students-79934.html). We have created a book specifically for this need -Ultimate GMAT
Grammar (it covers all of the tested grammar topics on the GMAT, plus a bit more concepts that
international students seem to struggle the most (articles, etc). The best thing of all is that it is Free ).
Other books to consider are Kaplan Verbal Foundations and MGMAT Verbal Foundations. This is for you
to decide how much help you need or how much time you have. Also, take a look at GMAT Club's Verbal
Resources for many copies of study notes.
 If you are short on time and can’t cover the MGMAT’s SC book, you can use the Kaplan Verbal
Workbook - it has good strategies and I have personally used it to prepare, so it does work, though it is not
as complete as the MGMAT or Vertas Prep books.
 Critical Reasoning Optional Step: If you need additional help with Critical Reasoning - Do not get
both PowerScore CR and Manhattan GMAT CR - the books are virtually identical (not really but kind of).
Instead, you can get an inexpensive online course such as SC eGMAT or GMAT Pill's CR Pill. You can
also use the PR 1012 book for targeted practice with Assumption or Conclusion questions or you can go
very heavy weight and use LSAT books, but that's a tad too hardcore and usually unnecessary. See BM’s
review of the LSAT resources.
 Reading Comprehension is often the hardest area to conquer. Unless you strongly feel that Reading is your
forte, I would recommend you pick up a reading habit for the time being. I have written a large post on
what I call GMAT Fiction and its benefits - take a look. I felt that reading books was a big contributor to
my SC and RC abilities and gave me a 96th percentile in Verbal (not too shabby for a person who spoke
zero English until 12). There are no downsides to this really - worst thing possible is that you would have
read some great books. And yes - make sure you read them during your low productivity time (at night,
during transit, etc).
 Verbal forum should be your hobby by now and we have a great feature – GMAT Club Forum Timer. Use
it! If you have not discovered it yet, you should – the timer will keep track of all your practice and even
more – it will suggest you questions (every day Monday through Friday) that are at your level, and after
about 10 questions in SC and CR, it will even give you a daily estimated GMAT score.
 Verbal Advantage – you may have seen badges and posts about it – make sure you use this initiative.
Every year for about 3 months, GMAT club teams up with the best verbal prep companies to bring you the
best experts, articles, and questions. You can use these resources at any time and benefit from the previous
years of work. Verbal Advantage 2013 and also the first season – Verbal Advantage 2012
 Take the verbal-only portion of the tests to evaluate your progress (compare to how you did in the
diagnostic test).
 Another worthwhile resource for you may be this quant-focused discussion: how to get from V30 to V40

Month 3

 This month should be spent on 2 things: taking full length tests (polishing your test taking techniques,
timing, stamina) and Reviewing your error log (going through your weaknesses, making sure you
understand why you keep making mistakes and how to solve every problem you encountered). You can
start using Error log earlier than this by the way - the earlier the better.
 You can also use this time to prolong your prep (we assume most will run about 4 weeks late and will need
this time) or you can use it to spend on digging deeper in some areas.
 Schedule your test if you have not done so already.
 Start taking full length tests (including AWA and IR ) - this is important for your test stamina. Plan to
spend a Saturday on this and then subsequent test review.
 Spend a few weeks taking tests and drilling down into your areas of weakness. Create a "black list of
questions" that you continue to struggle with and find a way to solve them with minimal mental effort.
 For IR, there is always the big question of, how important is IR really, and the answer, clearly, is – nobody
knows. We expect that it will be more definite in 2015/2016 years when the first IR test-takers have
graduated and GMAC can trace patterns. Meanwhile, go here for IR resources and practice.
The BIG Day and Final Thoughts
Make sure you take a look at these before you take the GMAT:

 What to do 30-14-7-1 days before the GMAT?

 What to expect at the test center and 8 things not to do
 Analysis of Patterns among those who scored 750+ and what they did
 The best of GMAT Club’s debriefs – get inspired!

Common Mistakes with GMAT preparation

1: Rushing to take tests before learning anything - waste of tests

! 2: Starting with the Official Guide - waste of official GMAT questions

3: Giving GMAT the worst time of the day - studying after a long day
4: Skipping basics and rushing to advanced topics
5: Moving through material too fast or too slow
6: Starting to prepare with poor English proficiency

How long should you prep really?

The study plan above suggests 3 months, and that's probably 10-15 hours per week (2 hrs/work day
and 5 hours on the weekend).
Over 3 months, that's about 120 - 180 hours, which includes reading some books, so the true study
time is probably 80 - 120 hrs.
What if you study 2x or 3x of that and take 9 months instead of 3, can you triple your improvement?
No, actually, your performance will be MUCH worse if you spread out your prep over a time period
great than 5 months. Long study stretches are demotivating, hard to keep fresh, and ultimately
ineffective as after 6 months, you start forgetting material faster than you can learn it and the
time you will have to spend 75% of your time on refresh. It is much more effective to spend 3-4
months, and that’s what I would encourage you to do.

How do you Measure Improvement and what if you are not

seeing any?
Many test-takers waste a lot of tests and precious time by taking un-needed CAT’s. As a matter of
fact, you should be able to get away by taking no more than 10 CAT’s during your GMAT love affair.
The question you may ask then is – how do I measure improvement and keep track of my score?
A number of ways actually:

 Make sure you are hitting a certain percentage of the questions in each topic/subject. Set a goal such as
90% of questions have to be right in exercises, OG, or wherever. E.g. if you just covered Geometry, there
is no reason to take a whole quant CAT since you will only hit 3-4 Geometry questions tops (perhaps as
few as 1-2) and it will be a minimal impact on the score, while you will waste a few hours, waste a test,
and more importantly, grow discouraged.
 Use short quizzes and exercise. Let’s say you covered that same Geometry chapter in the book and only hit
50% on the quiz at the end of the chapter. Do 2 things: 1) Analyze your mistakes, read the explanations
how to solve questions, and make sure you can solve each one of them 2) Go back to the chapter and using
the mistakes you just made re-read/learn (make notes, create PPT, etc) of the areas you are still lacking.
Then you can use OG, GMAT Club tests, Kapan Quiz bank, or whatever you want to do real short/quick
checks to see if you have improved.
 At this point in time, it does not matter what your overall Quant score is, it only matters what percentage
of the types of questions ALREADY covered is.
 You can use the GMAT Club Forum timer. As long as you take about 10 questions in PS and DS, you will
get a quant raw score estimate and as soon as you do the same in SC and CR, you will get a verbal score
estimate (note that RC is not evaluated). Learn more about the amazing and free GMAT Club Forum
Timer and Workbook here.
 Finally, once you have covered ALL of the quant topics, it is time to take the Quant CAT and similarly
when you have finished the Verbal section, it is time to take the full Verbal CAT. (This is the
reason GMAT Club tests have split quant and verbal CAT’s – we don’t think you really need to take a Full
CAT until the very end when you are working on improving your stamina and test-day strategy, and at that
point, you can just Quant and Verbal CAT’s with an 8 minute break).
 What if No improvement? My suggestion would be to understand why, what needs to change, and how.
You need to answer this yourself. If you can’t, post it on the forum, though I have to warn you, it is a hard
one to answer from afar. A much better option is to get a tutor for an hour or two (that’s all you should
need) to get you back on track. Any decent tutor can spot most of the issues after one session and you can
use the second session to answer any questions and draft a personalized plan for the rest of your prep. You
can also take a course – that’s become an especially popular and cheap alternative with the online
offerings from EGMAT,Magoosh, and GMAT Pill, many of which have courses for less than the cost of
books (as long as $59). Many of the courses are interactive and adapt to your needs. Online adaptive
courses often are much more effective than books since they are audio visual, provide constant feedback,
and provide instructor support.

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_________________

Founder of GMAT Club